Becoming One with Water
It was the sort of exaggerated depiction you might see in gag manga, where a character’s condition is blown wildly out of proportion—one punch sending them rocketing into the sky, or their soul slipping free as if they’d tasted paradise. Among those tropes was the classic image of a body turning limp and gooey like slime. That was exactly what I felt now.
The moment I learned this power—the ability to resonate with water—the boundary between my body and the sea began to dissolve. My body had not literally become seawater. The eighty-meter divine form still glowed deep blue as it glided through the ocean. Yet the once-rigid line separating solid scales from liquid water had softened dramatically. The scales felt closer to water; the water itself seemed to have taken on some of the scales’ firmness.
Had I reincarnated as a jellyfish instead of the Azure Dragon, I might have known this sensation from the very beginning.
This is true unity with water.
Yet that limp, fluid feeling was not the whole of the ability I had awakened. The sense of assimilation was merely a status indicator—like a machine’s power light—showing that I was actively using the power. What truly mattered came next.
Swoooosh.
A small wave rose on the surface, burst into spray, and vanished. Almost no wind stirred the sea. That wave had been created by my will alone only moments earlier.
Water manipulation. That was the core of the new ability I had awakened.
Through my loosened senses, the seawater moved as though it were an extension of my own body. When I pushed it in a broad, palm-shaped surge, waves rose exactly as they had before. I could also lift it straight up to form a towering column. The effect was not limited to simple motion; merely imagining the desired shape with sufficient clarity brought it into being. It was, quite literally, the power to command water—simple, yet overwhelmingly potent.
But such strength naturally came with a penalty.
…I’m exhausted.
Just as my friend had guessed, the ability drew on mental strength. To awaken it I had instinctively shut off my five senses, pushing my mind to its absolute limit. The problem was that my mental reserves were not particularly impressive.
In many games, the more powerful and sophisticated the skill, the greater the cost. A level-one fireball might consume ten mana, while a level-ten inferno demanded a hundred. The ability to resonate with water—Water Resonance, to give it a simple name—almost certainly followed the same principle. How could I be sure? The crushing wave of fatigue that slammed into me was proof enough.
I raised my mental strength to awaken the resonance, then immediately began throwing the ability around the moment it bloomed…
It was only natural that my mind had run completely dry. Add to that the fundamental difference between a human soul and an Azure Dragon’s, and the picture became clear. I was suffering the perfect storm of three factors: mental power strained to its limit, the innate gap between human and dragon, and reckless overuse of the new ability.
The joy of successful awakening lasted only a moment. My eyes slid shut as swiftly as a man collapsing into bed after days without sleep.
It feels as though nearly two days have passed.
This world had a moon as well. The last moon I had seen before testing my resonance had been full. That perfectly round orb was now rising with a faint shadow across its face. If its cycle resembled Earth’s, more than a full day had clearly elapsed.
That realization made me hesitate to use Water Resonance again. The ability was undeniably powerful, yet the backlash was far harsher than I had anticipated.
At this rate I’ll faint mid-battle and be beaten senseless without resistance.
Before losing consciousness I had only moved a small amount of water in my experiments. Given that my Azure Dragon body stretched eighty meters, the volume was roughly equivalent to a human lifting a single cup. Fighting a murderer intent on killing me with one cup of water? I wasn’t about to splash someone’s face and run like a soap-opera character. It was absurd.
Thus, despite having awakened a new power, I found myself forced to search for an entirely different strategy. The road ahead looked treacherous.
Still, I have no intention of abandoning this ability.
I had not yet decided exactly how I would fight with it, but even a cup of water could become a weapon. Think of those action-movie moments when a desperate fighter throws sand into an enemy’s eyes. It felt somewhat pathetic to awaken a grand ability only to consider sand-throwing tactics, yet I had little choice.
While I floated beneath the moonlight, lost in thought, I suddenly became aware of commotion around me. No direct sound reached my ears, but the surroundings felt strangely lively, as though I had become a keeper surrounded by newborn animals.
What is this?
Despite the sensation, my five senses detected nothing unusual. The sea remained a moonlit sea; the wind merely danced while carrying the moonlight. Then what was this wriggling feeling?
At that moment, a voice reached me.
It was not spoken aloud, yet I heard it clearly. Without thinking, I poured mental strength into the sea and created a wave. A moment later, I could only stare in astonishment.
…It’s far larger than before.
The wave that rose was on a completely different scale from those I had made before fainting. It was easily twice as powerful as the largest artificial wave pools in any water park. I watched numbly as it surged toward the cliffs that presumably marked the edge of the continent.
What changed?
The method of power manipulation and the amount of mental strength used were identical. The only difference was that I had heard a voice before employing the resonance.
Could that voice be the key?
Before the thought could fully settle, a new sensation welled up from below. This time it was louder, more energetic—and unmistakably joyful. Only then did I realize whose emotions had been enveloping me.
The sea itself.
It was the water.
Only now did I notice something I had overlooked in the excitement of awakening the ability.
The emotion I felt right before the resonance awakened… that was the emotion of the water.
When I focused on the sea’s feelings, I found them remarkably similar to those of innocent children. They were not constantly emotional, but when they desired something they wished for it with all their being, and when that wish was fulfilled their joy was overwhelming. The lively stirring beneath me after I created the wave had been the water celebrating the fulfillment of its own desire.
For a moment I wondered why they had not simply created waves themselves if they wanted them so badly, but thinking about the physics of wave formation made it obvious. Waves are naturally produced by wind; otherwise they would require an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.
The realization that water possessed emotion brought me a wealth of information. It explained why the waves I created this time were far taller. To put it simply, my relationship with the water was like that of a weak owner and a quiet mastiff.
The “weak owner” reflected my insufficient mental strength, while the “quiet mastiff” referred to the water’s naturally modest desires. When I had used the ability before, the waves and pillars I produced had not been particularly strong. Moreover, I had fainted the instant I ended the resonance. It seemed the water had not truly desired those shapes, and my weak self had been forcibly dragging it along like an owner yanking an unwilling dog on a leash. The resistance had consumed far more power than necessary while producing little result.
This time, however, the mastiff had strongly desired the “walk” known as wave formation. I had gently pulled the leash in answer, and the water had bounded forward with delight.
In the end, the important factor is how much the water sympathizes with me.
The more our intentions aligned, the more the power of Water Resonance multiplied. If the water had moved in perfect accordance with my will during the fight with that whale, complete victory would not have been impossible.
Fortunately, the relationship between myself and the water was not a temporary one that reset each time. Even though the water lacked strong desires, the amount that obeyed me had clearly increased. When I moved to a new spot and created another wave, the volume that answered me was not as large as the previous one, yet still far greater than my earliest attempts. The earlier events had caused more of the water to sympathize with me.
Ah, my mental strength really is the bottleneck.
The limit of mental power I could expend remained unchanged. As my vision began to darken once more, I reaffirmed the direction in which I must grow: I would win the heart of the mastiff while simultaneously tempering my own strength.